For a moment, the Virginian studied the young man standing stiffly to attention before him without speaking. He even walked round him once, his hands clasped behind his back, before coming back to look him straight in the eye. His expression was very serious.
'Hmm!… I see. A very prickly sense of honour, haven't you? Very French! But – will you swear to me on your honour that this great urge of yours to exonerate yourself in the eyes of the Seneca chief is the sole reason for your request?'
'N-no, General.'
'I thought not. Stop gazing at the shutters and look at me, if you please. And now, listen carefully to what I say. You will not make one of the Indian princess's escort because I have no wish to lose a brave man. She will be leaving Tappan within a fortnight, with an escort of men I can trust to remain impervious to her charms, a minister of religion and men who are veterans of the Indian war. You are much too young for that task – and she is by far too lovely.'
Washington's decision was a wise one. Yet, once outside, Gilles was conscious that the dissatisfaction which had come upon him during the execution had returned more strongly than before. It had done him no good to see Sitapanoki again. He had thought himself recovered from his infatuation but once in her presence he had been as weak as a child. One look from those great golden eyes had set the fire raging in his blood again and now he had only one idea, which was to see her.
Consequently, it was with only half his mind that he read Rochambeau's letter. Yet what it said was interesting enough, for it constituted something like a rehabilitation of himself and Tim. The French commander wrote to tell his former secretary that he had been cleared of the charge of murder levelled against him.
'The trooper of Lauzun's regiment who goes by the name of Samson was apprehended in the act of attempting, with three companions, to intercept the consignment of gold shortly after its leaving Newport. Two of the rogues were slain. Unhappily, those who fell into our hands afterwards succeeded in making their escape. Samson was one of these and we have so far been unable to recapture him. I have to tell you, therefore, that you are restored to the good esteem of your comrades and to the good graces of the Duc de Lauzun, and that whenever, by God's will, we return to France, you shall return to occupy the place of which it was never my intention to deprive you…'
Gilles crumpled the letter convulsively between his fingers. He did not feel particularly gratified, but rather the reverse. Of course, it was agreeable to know that he was no longer an outcast, but his pride was injured. Washington had made him an officer. Yet when he returned to the French ranks it seemed that it would be to take up his pen again. Well, if America wanted to adopt him, she could have him all the way.
The part of the letter which gave him the greatest satisfaction was undoubtedly the news of Morvan's escape. Morvan's death was not a matter for a court martial, it belonged to Gilles Goëlo. Not even the king had the right to take that from him. The hatred between them had grown too fierce to end so senselessly, without at least another confrontation.
'Those damned fools of the provost's couldn't catch him!' he muttered to himself, chewing nervously on a blade of grass. 'But I know that I shall do it, sooner or later, wherever he may be.'
The people who had followed the unfortunate Major Andre's body to the little cemetery of Tappan were beginning to return. Gilles caught sight of Tim holding forth to three or four men a head shorter than himself and called out to him to join him in a glass or two of rum at the inn. Rochambeau's letter certainly called for some sort of celebration and coming on top of the execution and Sitapanoki's unexpected reappearance it gaves Gilles a raging impulse to go and get drunk.
He set himself conscientiously to achieving this end, with full encouragement from Tim who viewed the Indian girl's arrival with a good deal less than enthusiasm.
'I'd be a lot happier if only you could stay drunk until that confounded woman has left this village altogether,' he declared, pouring his friend a generous measure. 'You've risked your neck for her sake quite enough and I wouldn't put it past you to do it again.'
'It's not death I want – it's her! I feel as though, if I could only have her – just once – I'd be cured.'
'Or hooked worse than ever! Some women are like drink. When you've once tasted them, you want them again. You'd do better to try and think of something else. Here's to you!'
But, curiously enough, Gilles was unable to get drunk at all. It was Tim who succumbed, letting his head sink on to the table and starting to snore. Gilles looked at him gloomily for a moment. It was no fun drinking alone and if Tim had deserted him there was no point in remaining any longer at the inn. Tossing a few coins on to the table, he made his way a trifle unsteadily outside and saw that it was already dark.
A few deep breaths of the cold air soon drove the fumes from his brain. The night was illumined by the glow of the various watch fires that ringed Tappan but everything was quiet, although they were no more than a few miles from the besieged city of New York. The guns were silent and the occasional shot in the distance might have been no more than a belated hunter. Autumn had come and the war, like the land itself, was growing sleepy. Both sides were preparing to hold their present positions until spring. And what would that bring? New ways of carrying the city, more guns, more men, more money? The men on both sides must become farmers again if the fields were to be tilled and this year would see no solution.
Sighing, Gilles set out to walk back to his billet but without paying much heed to his direction. He was in no hurry to get back. He was not sleepy and in fact he did not really know quite what he wanted, except perhaps to be rid of the throbbing in his head. He bumped into something and cursed and then apologized at once when he saw that it was a woman.
'I was looking for you.' The quiet voice was Gunilla's. 'Only don't shout so. You'll wake the whole village.'
He gaped at her incredulously as she stood in the yellow light from the windows of a nearby house.
'I should never have known you,' he said, amazed.
'Perhaps because you have never looked at me.'
That was true. From the moment when he had saved her from the gyrfalcon, she had been no more to him than a grey shadow, a bundle of dirty clothes surmounted by a grimy yellow thatch, a miserable object midway between a goat and a midden, supposing that either were endowed with the power of speech. But what stood before him now was a slim young girl, the slenderness of her waist emphasized by the black dress she wore. The hands emerging from her white linen cuffs and the face beneath the goffered cap were a trifle browned perhaps by long exposure to the sun and wind, but the eyes had the blue of flax flowers and the hair drawn up into a heavy knot upon her neck was like pale silk. The picture she presented was so pretty that Gilles smiled involuntarily.
'That was unforgivable of me, Gunilla,' he said. 'You are truly charming.'
The compliment did not win an answering smile from her. She even gave a tiny shrug of annoyance.
'Keep your compliments. It was not for them I came in search of you, but because she asked me to. She wants to see you.'
'She?'
'Don't be stupid. Who do you think? Sitapanoki, of course. She cannot come out herself. General Washington has asked her not to show herself in the village. And she made me promise to fetch you to her. Will you come?'
'I'm coming. Where are we going?'
'They have lodged us with the minister's wife. She is a kindly person, although her ideas are strict. She welcomed me as though I were her own daughter, but she is not best pleased to be entertaining an Indian beneath her roof.'
'And now you want to take a man into the house? Why, she'll throw me out!'
'She won't know. Mrs Gibson is the kind of woman who has an answer for everything. She has put Sitapanoki in an outbuilding where she has her sewing room. She pretends it is out of respect for her rank. In any case, Sitapanoki would not live under the same roof as the priest of the great spirit from over the sea. It is at the bottom of the orchard.
No one will see you.'
'What does Sitapanoki want with me?'
Gunilla had walked on a little ahead of him. Gilles' question had been harmless enough and yet he saw the girl's slender back stiffen and she turned on him suddenly, her eyes blazing with anger.
'I don't know and I don't want to know! I came to find you because she threatened to go herself if I did not. But I wish she were in hell, for my part! She's a devil, that Indian, like all the rest of them!'
And without another word of explanation, Gunilla picked up her skirts and ran towards the far end of the village. Gilles was forced to follow at the same pace. He knew the house of Mr Gibson, the minister, but he did not know whereabouts his guide meant to take him. In fact, she skirted the garden, pushed through a hedge of dogwood and stopped at last by a flight of narrow wooden steps.
'Up there,' she said, jerking her head towards a lighted window. 'You can leave the same way. Good night.'
She melted into the darkness of the orchard and Gilles raced up the rickety stairway with a thudding heart. The door seemed to open of its own accord beneath his impatient hand, revealing a bright, simple room furnished in a plain, country style with frilled muslin curtains which gave it a touchingly virginal air. It was lit only by the fire burning in the hearth and he did not at first see Sitapanoki. It was not until he looked at the bed which stood in the farthest corner from the fire, that he saw her. She was in bed, the covers drawn up to her chin and she seemed to be asleep.
He moved towards her softly, cursing the pine floor boards that creaked beneath his weight, and stood for a moment looking at her, holding his breath and revelling in her beauty.
The tumbled mass of her hair made a dark halo within which her face glowed like a golden flower. Her long lashes threw soft shadows on cheeks that were flushed with warmth and her moist lips were slightly parted as though, in her sleep, she were awaiting a kiss. Marvelling, Gilles could scarcely believe that he had stepped from the cold night outside into this feminine paradise.
He was almost on the point of bending over her when, without opening her eyes, the sleeper murmured: 'You came quickly. Even before I could go to sleep. It's very nice of you…'
The irony of her tone broke the spell. Gilles drew himself up.
'You asked for me. I had no cause to keep you waiting. What do you want of me?'
'Only to know something. When I return to my noble husband, Sagoyewatha, will you be my escort?'
'No. General Washington does not wish it.'
Suddenly, she opened her eyes, enveloping him in their warm light with the glint of mockery in it.
'You asked him, then?'
'I did. I thought it my duty to escort you back myself, so as to clear myself, in your husband's eyes, of the charge of abduction which Hiakin has no doubt put upon me.'
The Indian girl smiled, half-closed her eyes and studied the young man covertly through her lashes. She was acknowledging to herself that no man had ever pleased her as this one did. War suited him. The past weeks had hardened his face, removing for ever the last traces of boyhood, and Sitapanoki did not have to tax her memory very far to recall the perfect physique that lay beneath the dark uniform coat. And then there was that ice-blue glance, and the little sardonic curl at the corner of his firm mouth. A fine figure of a man indeed, as handsome as Cornplanter but infinitely more attractive.
'Was that the only reason? Had you truly no other wish but to restore me to my husband, or—?'
'Or what?' His voice was defensive.
'Oh, nothing… I must have dreamed it, but I thought that one night, in my dwelling, you besought me to fly with you—Dreams are a strange thing, you know, because it seems to me that I can still hear your words. "If you will come with me," you said, "I will love you as no other man could ever do." '
'You were not dreaming. I said those words and I do not deny them, but—'
'But? That is not a word that women like to hear.'
'Forgive me. I meant what I said then but so many things are different now. I am no longer my own man. I am one of General Washington's officers.'
'You mean that you no longer love me? A pity. For you see, I was ready to love you—'
Abruptly, she flung back the covers and stood before him, naked as truth, tossing back the dark mass of her hair with a movement that emphasized the proud hillocks of her breasts. But she made no move towards him. Instead, she walked past him as though he had all at once ceased to exist, crossing over to the fire, swaying on her long legs and affording him glimpses of high, firm buttocks through the shining curtain of her hair.
Gilles watched her stroll over to the hearth, the perfection of her body outlined against the ruddy glow, and his throat felt suddenly drier than a summer desert while the blood beat in his temples. He heard himself saying hoarsely, in a voice that seemed dredged out of the earth: 'What are you playing at? You say that you were ready to love me?'
'Why else should I have come here to find you when it would have been easy for me to go back to my own place after the Skinners had slowly killed the Avenger and burned the farm?'
She turned slowly, so that he could see her sideways-on against the flames. The bold curve of her breasts was enough to drive a man to madness and below it the exquisitely gentle line of the flat stomach and the softly rising mount of Venus… Her voice deepened, rasping his quivering nerves.
'I desired you in my husband's camp and I desire you now. Oh, I know what is holding you back! You are afraid of displeasing the man you have chosen to serve – but that is not enough. Perhaps, after all, I was mistaken. Perhaps you are not truly a man?'
He took her then. Brutally and completely. As completely as she melted into his embrace. The floor, with good Mrs Gibson's home-made rag rug upon it, rose up to meet them, warm from the fire. The girl's flesh was hot but Gilles' hands were icy cold. She nibbled his lips gently, like a little animal, then thrust him away and knelt beside him.
'Let me take those absurd clothes off you! You are so much more beautiful without them.'
Impatient to have her in his arms again, he tore off his coat and the long white waistcoat and was attacking his cravat when she stopped him.
'No. I want to do it myself. We daughters of the great woods are taught how to draw out the pleasure of our chosen master, to make it last.'
Gilles laughed. 'Just as you learn how to spin out your torments?' he asked. But she did not smile.
'It is the same thing. Love is a slow death from which one is reborn continually. Pleasure, like pain, should be a climax.'
The play that their two bodies engaged in, there in front of the dying fire, was agonizingly subtle and delicious. Before she yielded to him at last, in an ecstasy of defeat, Sitapanoki teased her partner's desire to the limits of endurance, from which he was released at last with a growl like a wild beast. It was echoed by a gasping cry from her. Then came oblivion.
Gilles was the first to awake from that blessed swoon of love. He eased himself away gently. The fire had sunk to embers. He put a few logs on and blew them into life. Tall yellow flames sprang up, bathing the sleeping woman in their light. Bright threads of sweat showed on her smooth skin. Gilles traced one of them lightly with his finger until it disappeared into the shadow of her parted thighs. Sitapanoki, dozing, felt the caress and moaned and turned towards him without opening her eyes.
Once again desire swelled in the young man's loins, but for some moments yet, he remained kneeling by her, playing her woman's body like a harp, feeling it writhing and panting under his touch, revelling in the moans she made, until at last she rose up and fell on him, enfolding him in her flesh and in the warm, spicy scent of her hair and all but tipping both of them into the fire. Then Gilles carried her over to the bed to lose himself with her amid the white sheets.
Three times more they made love and still they could not tire of one another. Their bodies seemed to have been created from all time to fit close and never part. But Sitapanoki seemed at last to want to res
t. She nestled her head against her lover's neck and wrapped her arms round him.
She was so silent for a while that he thought she must have fallen asleep, but then he felt soft kisses on his skin and heard her whisper: 'Take me away—'
'Where do you want me to take you? To your own place? I have already told you—'
'To my own place, yes – but not to my husband.'
She raised herself on her elbow and kissed him, a long kiss, while her fingers travelled softly through the downy hair upon his chest, tracing the pattern of muscle.
'Listen – after many days' journeying up the river that flows by here, you come to a still greater river, the river the French called St Lawrence. Once, my people owned vast territories north of that river. They were slaughtered by the Iroquois and those few who escaped fled westwards. My father's tribe managed to survive longer than the rest, owing to a refuge of which, now, only I and some few others know the secret. One day, alas, they had to come out and were lured into a trap. Not many escaped the arrows of the Iroquois, and I was taken captive. But the enemy never discovered our refuge and I think that some still live there. Come with me. You shall be their chief and I will be your wife and give you sons.'
Gently, Gilles unwound her arms and laid her down and gazed long into her eyes.
'This is madness, Sita… You are daydreaming. How could your people take a paleface for their chief? Nor do I wish to become a deserter, for that is what I should be if I fled with you.'
'You say you love me,' she said bitterly, 'and when I offer to give my life to you, you say it is madness. I was mad indeed to give myself to you – you, who can coolly accept that I return to my husband.'
Quick as a snake, she slipped out of the bed and stretched herself like a cat in the failing light of the fire.
'Who says I accept it?' Gilles said, watching her from the pillows. 'But I can see no way of avoiding it with honour.'
She did not answer and seemed even not to hear his words. She was staring wide-eyed into the fire, as though seeing strange pictures there, and she murmured as if to herself: 'Sagoyewatha will not punish me because he will believe the words of the great white chief, but perhaps he will no longer wish to keep me for his wife? My life then will be wretched indeed. It may be that I can win him back, but only by giving him more love even than I have given to you.'
Falcon 1 - The Lure of the Falcon Page 34